


Standstill

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14827443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: Hermione and Draco meet in the middle between to worlds at war, and share a moment of peace.





	Standstill

Hermione sucked in a breath as his ice-cold hand touched her cheek, and looked at him, really looked at him. In the three bitter years she hadn’t seen him, somehow he had filled out, even though he was skinnier than he used to be. His face was no longer so pointy, while it still contained the hint of what it had used to be. Everything about him was a bit like that, she mused, his robes were still expensive, but looked as if they came from a life left behind: too tight around his shoulders, too short around his ankles. He still looked beautiful like this though. Draco Malfoy had always been a handsome man, but now, with no malice hidden in the plains of his face, only curiosity in his furrowed eyebrows and with the grey of his eyes and the white of his hair fitting so perfectly against the backdrop of the snowy sky-

His other hand moved to her ribcage, and she knew he’d be able to feel her ribs tight against her skin, even through the material of her jacket. He hadn’t been the only one to lose weight, though this surprised her. She’d suppose that he, as a Malfoy, would have eaten well still. Maybe not, she conceded, having caught the name on the stone next to them briefly, before he moved away from it and the charms hiding it did their job once more.

She wondered why she was here, but she did not dare to ask. He answered anyway, and for a moment she feared he read her thoughts, but she remembered he had always been so very observant, so very quick to put things together, to figure them out, though back in Hogwarts, back in what seemed like another life, he had used it to find the weaknesses and _strike._ She’d always thought that if he’d apply himself he would have beaten her easily at ancient runes, just as he was always slightly better at potions than she— and even now thinking about the possibility pained her slightly.

“It was the only safe place we could think about,” he whispered, eyes moving between hers, and she could imagine it: two men standing side to side, clad in black, the only colour their pale skin and hair, watching a coffin drop down into the earth and vanish from sight. It was an image that had no right to be familiar, but she had seen it so many times now it refused to go away, playing on her eyelids like a video stuck on an endless loop every time she closed them.

She still wonders at this, though. Wonders at the fact that _Narcissa Malfoy_ is now buried between unknown strangers, between _muggles._ She wonders at the fact that enemies and friends lie side to side in death, and then wonders at the stark lines that divided them in their youth and how they are fading now. How they had their wands trained on each other a moment ago, and now stand in an almost intimate embrace. How they don’t know each other at all.

She wonders, and she doesn’t understand.

“Granger,” he said, and there was an element of surprise in his voice, as if he was a small child seeing something new and beautiful about the world. His face moved closer and stopped, eyes flickering between hers again, and she understood, raising her head.

He brushed his lips against hers then, a tentative caress, the puff of his breath warm against her frozen skin. It contrasted with his cold eye-lashes when they brushed the side of her eye. It made her heart stutter, and then beat and beat and beat, she felt as if she was living, as if this second could make a difference.

There was a finesse to it, even tinted by the desperation this war brought to everything, the knowledge that it was very likely now or never. And yet, in some sort of way time stood still for a moment, and her senses no longer dulled by the constant pain and trepidation and _tiredness_. She _felt_ something again, and though no sparks flew, comfort enveloped her like a warm blanket, like the feeling of drinking hot chocolate in her grandmother’s house after playing in the snow a whole day. Somehow, she felt safe and no longer so alone.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured as he pulled away, and panic exploded in her body. “For _this_ , Granger,” he said harshly, gesturing around him, voice tinted with frustration and impatience, she guessed because he had seen the panic and had known she had already assumed the worst: a hidden attack, the death curse, a kidnapping.

“I’m sorry this has brought you here, today.”

Somewhere behind him, a faint echo of church bells and a Christmas carol came floating on the wind, and somehow it filled her with hope.

“I’m sorry, too.”

He lifted his wand, and she flinched slightly, but made no move to raise her own, still clamped in her hand. He paused and then he conjured a single rose, laying it down upon one of the many graves she had come to see.

She looked at the name on the stone, at the date, wondered again how someone could be filled with so much life one moment, and leave only some letters and numbers left the next, wondered when her heart would stop aching for the boy she still loved, that now slept.

“Come _with_ me,” she said suddenly, desperate in a different way than before, but he shook his head, moving away.

“I am still a Malfoy,” he said, and Hermione would have felt disappointed, but for the urgent way he said this, shaking his left arm as he did, head moving quickly to see the world around them. She thought there was something he wasn’t saying, something he couldn’t say, or maybe she was imagining it but-

“Draco.” She said, savouring it on her tongue, extending her gloves to him, “stay safe?”

He took them with a sharp nod, pulled them over his blue-tinged hands and apparated away on the spot.

Hermione smiled slightly as she walked away from the desolation behind her, and felt for the first time in a really long time, a spark of hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. Kind of inspired by the Charon's gift, kind of something else entirely. I don't know. I didn't mean to share this, but here we are I guess.


End file.
